On the Edge of Damnation
by The Darkness Factor
Summary: In which Kuvira and Baatar are abducted and sent to the Spirit World to face a different kind of trial. Post-finale.
1. Part I

**A/N: **This was originally supposed to be a oneshot, but then suddenly I was at 8K and nowhere near finished, so I was like, "Yeah, that's not happening." So I split it into two parts.

**Warning: **there are mentions of depression, suicidal tendencies, and miscarriage. Nothing explicit, though.

Basically, welcome to proof that I am also Baavira trash. Enjoy!

* * *

><p><strong>On the Edge of Damnation<strong>

**Part I**

There was a muted roar emitting from behind the door.

Kuvira knew what it was. She could see the enraged faces now— none of them in specific detail, but the eyes were all the same: accusatory, menacing. She would feel every one of those stares, as was probably the intention. So long as her life was not in danger, the RCPD had no qualms about allowing the citizens of Republic City to see the former 'Great Uniter' in all of her prison-garb glory. Suyin's sister had no expression on her face as she took Kuvira by the arm, wrenching open the door.

Sunlight. Kuvira had forgotten what that felt like. It might have been pleasant if she were allowed outside at some point in the last two years, but at that moment it just felt like a slap in the face.

Chief Beifong, at least, didn't seem to appreciate the circus surrounding Kuvira's move from the prison to the courthouse. "Walk," she muttered behind her, her grip becoming more forceful. "Don't turn your head. Keep staring straight ahead. Don't say anything."

Kuvira did as she was told. She didn't look around. She didn't respond to any of the shouts thrown in her direction. Out of the corner of her eye she saw something sailing towards them, but before she could respond the chief swung one of her cables at it, knocking it out of the air. Though the crowd strained against the police barriers that were put up, they made it to the unmarked car without further incident.

"Hard part's over," Lin grunted, climbing in after Kuvira.

Kuvira almost snorted. That was a lie, if ever she'd heard one.

The crowd thinned as they took a less-public route to the courthouse, skirting around Korra's Crater and the spirit portal that it held. There were still-crumbling buildings hidden under the piles of spirit vines. There wasn't a spirit to be seen, which didn't surprise Kuvira. A tiny little wood spirit had once wandered into her cell, let out an unearthly shriek, and vanished. She fiddled with the platinum cuffs slightly, grateful for small victories (they hadn't cuffed her ankles together).

Chief Beifong said nothing during the trip, but her body spoke for her: she was tight as a bowstring, ready to snap at any sign of trouble. Kuvira had the impression that the Republic City chief of police would rather someone did attack the car, if only so that she didn't have to constantly be waiting for something to happen.

"This isn't going to be easy," Korra had said, during her last visit. "I don't think you expected it to be. But none of the legal counselors in the region really want to represent you, and I get the feeling that Raiko's pulled some strings in order to have that right revoked."

Kuvira wouldn't have accepted a legal counselor, at any rate. She didn't need 'defending'. She didn't want it. She'd told Korra as much, but for some reason that only made the Avatar look worried.

They were just passing by the train station when the car juddered to a stop.

It was Lin's nonexistent reaction that caught Kuvira's attention. The woman didn't say a word, instead continuing to stare out the window with a hawk-like expression, as though nothing had changed. Kuvira shifted in her seat, craning her neck around so that she could see outside, too. There was nothing out of the ordinary— just a few citizens going about their day, entering and exiting the train station—

They weren't moving.

Kuvira gaped. Then she twisted around and shuffled closer to the chief of police. Lin wasn't moving, either. She wasn't even _breathing._

A metallic scream made Kuvira jump, and she turned her head in time to see the door of the car ripped clean off. Something with a huge black and white head stuck its face in the car, sniffed at her once, and then roared with enough force to make her lean back. It then backed up several steps and fixed her with an unending stare.

Kuvira frowned. "You want me to get out?"

It was a spirit— that much was obvious. But it didn't make sense. There was no point in a rescue mission, because the spirits probably hated her as much as the humans did, if not more so. Maybe it was taking her somewhere quieter, where she could face execution instead of them waiting for the humans to sentence her. That seemed more likely.

Seeing as how time was still at a standstill, there was no point in waiting. She could die later, or she could die now.

Deciding to give the great creature the benefit of the doubt, Kuvira climbed out of the car as best as her handcuffs would allow. The thing leaned closer and sniffed her again, growled, and then turned and stalked towards the train station. It ignored the other people frozen in place, turning to look back at her when it reached the entrance. Kuvira followed in silence, aware of how strange this would look to an outsider: the Great Uniter (no longer) in prison garb, following a large spirit into a train station.

She wondered if Korra was able to move, wherever she was. She wondered if the Avatar even knew what was happening.

It was the silence, apart from the spirit's movement, that unnerved her more than anything else.

The station was darkened when Kuvira entered it. The spirit almost vanished whenever it passed under one of the shadows, but its hulking form was easy enough for her to follow. It was preferable to Lin's tense guardianship, though she appreciated Suyin's sister's blunt personality and no-nonsense attitude. The spirit didn't seem capable of speech, though Kuvira was tempted to ask if it would be easier if the spirit just ate her now.

The spirit was able to walk through the frozen humans with little trouble, but Kuvira had to duck around groups and small children. She eventually became aware of other eyes on her, these ones little better than those of the mob that had confronted her outside of the prison.

Eventually she decided to say, "I'm pretty sure that the humans are going to give me an adequate punishment for my crimes. I'm not sure what this is about."

The spirit didn't roar at her, but the look it sent her was enough to make her reconsider speaking again.

Eventually they reached a platform deserted of human beings, and the spirit stopped beside a bench, sitting and looking a bit like an angry guard dog. Kuvira sat as well, doing her best to ignore the way it stuck its head near her and sniffed her, as though it was making sure she didn't run away. Not that there was a lot she could do against a giant spirit, considering her chi had been blocked before she left the jail. She let her hands sit limply on her lap and closed her eyes, trying to meditate (a suggestion Korra had made during one of her earlier visits), but concentration was nigh impossible.

She was nervous.

She didn't have the right to be. Kuvira liked to think she had been accepting of her punishments thus far; it was more the lack of people left in her life that hurt, as opposed to the confinement. Korra's visits were few and far between, and though the Avatar understood her, it did not mean she liked or cared for her.

_You did try to kill her, _Kuvira reminded herself. _People aren't supposed to like you if you do that._

Kuvira had no one to blame but herself for her predicament. She knew that. It was one of the things that made her such a cooperative convict.

What were they waiting for? In spite of being able to sense glares directed at her, Kuvira could see no other spirits in the train station. The spirit beside her seemed to share her impatience, because it began to pace around the bench she was sitting on. Kuvira eventually realized that she ought to be freaking out more about this, but then the whole day had begun with a surreal air. This didn't seem like much of a stretch.

Finally, noises in the distance alerted both her and the spirit, and it stood up and sniffed in the direction they'd come from. After a while, Kuvira was able to make out a voice rambling on loudly.

"… stupid, idiotic decisions. You know how many we had writhing in _agony_ because of you? Because of you and her and your 'miracles of science'? Well I didn't count, but it was a lot!"

Kuvira stood up, but a loud snarl from the spirit that had guided her had her sitting again.

A tall, willowy spirit with flowers growing out of its head led the way, ranting angrily (and making Kuvira grateful that she'd gotten the one that didn't speak her language). She didn't even look at it twice, however— she only had eyes for the person it was leading towards them.

It was hard not to flinch, when their eyes met, but she held his gaze until something in his made her look away. He wasn't handcuffed, but it was clear that he didn't want to be there. He was also dressed in a suit— the kind of thing that a high-class citizen of Republic City might wear, rather than the Zaofu garb he should've been wearing. Baatar looked her up and down, but his tight expression (like Lin's) did not change. She knew what she looked like: a green jumpsuit and hair that she'd been allowed to messily braid before leaving. Her muscles were even harder than they had been during her surrender, all of the fat siphoned off by a scant diet and hours of working out because there was nothing better to do.

In haunted looks and shadows under their eyes, they matched.

"Hello Baatar," she said after a moment.

"Kuvira."

"Enough chit-chat!" Baatar's guide spat. "You both know why you're here. You've got things to answer for, Mr. Engineer, and _you_—" he jabbed a finger at Kuvira— "don't even get me started on you, _Great Uniter. _We don't get involved in human wars, but you made us get involved, and you're going to—"

The larger spirit growled.

"What? But I wanna—"

"What you want doesn't matter."

The third voice was a good deal calmer than the willow spirit. Kuvira looked up to see a spirit with a round, white face glide down from seemingly nowhere. Its eyes were wide, like blue chips of ice, and its mouth seemed fixed in a straight line, but it was clearly the one who had spoken. Whatever body it might have had was encompassed by a white cloak, which fluttered as it moved down to join them.

Fitting, in her current situation.

The spirit was even more difficult to keep eye contact with that Baatar, but this time Kuvira did not look away. It moved uncomfortably close to her face, but she kept her own expression impassive, unsure of what it wanted. It turned and did the same to Baatar, who couldn't seem to keep himself from flinching back.

"You may go," it finally said. The words were not directed at either her or Baatar, for the other two spirits bowed deeply and faded into the darkness. The third spirit seemed to grow in height as it regarded the two of them. Kuvira stood up, confident this time that she wouldn't be roared at.

"I am aware that your judgment by the other humans is at hand, Kuvira," it finally said. "And I am aware that your judgment by the other humans has already passed, Baatar Jr. Beifong. But the spirits have decreed that whatever punishment you have received or will received is not sufficient. We have agreed that you must face our justice in addition to whatever the humans have sentenced you with."

Kuvira said nothing. It certainly seemed fair.

Baatar almost looked relieved. The spirit noticed this, and looked at him sharply.

"Do not think this a boon, human, even if it does seem an escape from your mother's gilded cage," it warned him. Kuvira, too, glanced at Baatar. "There is a train arriving in five minutes. The choice is yours: board it, and face the trials beyond, or leave, and wander the world in this pocket of time until you wither and die. You may even go and find the people you know. You may face them, beg them to move or recognize you, but there will be no response. Boarding the train, however, may mean a worse fate."

That made things easy. Worse fate or not, Kuvira couldn't stand the silence.

The spirit looked at her once more with something she couldn't identify, before it vanished as well.

There was no sign of a train approaching, but Kuvira sat back down the bench, closing her eyes and taking a breath, like Korra had taught her. Detaching herself from everything around her, from the situation she was in.

Quietly, to her right: "You're going to board that train, aren't you?"

"I have no reason not to."

A slight movement told her that he had sat down on the bench too, as far away from her as he could possibly get. She ignored the slight ache in her gut at the thought of him so near, because he could not have been further away from her. Instead, she continued her breathing exercises until the tightness in her stomach loosened, and she regained her sense of resignation. She opened her eyes to see a light in the distance to the left, and Baatar sitting on her right. His fists were clenched in his lap.

"Why do you think they waited until now?" he asked.

Kuvira had already thought of that. "I suspected they wanted a day that would be meaningful. My first time seeing sunlight in two years. Also, I suspect it's your first time seeing me again. Dressed like that, you look the part of a credible witness that the prosecution can exploit."

He glared at her, but Kuvira couldn't bring herself to care. She'd lashed out, in spite of telling herself that her hurt didn't matter. She turned away from him before he could answer, and whatever he might have said was drowned out by the screech of the train's arrival.

It didn't look any different from the other trains frozen in the station, but there was no one aboard that Kuvira could see. She stood and moved to the doors. She was tempted to look back and wait for Baatar to board with her, but she knew that this had to be his decision. So she instead went to the back of the car and settled down in a seat there, looking out the window. Baatar had apparently been right behind her the entire time, and he sat across the aisle from her. He refused to look at her.

The train pulled out of the station, but when it emerged outside it was clear they weren't in Republic City any longer. There were rouge cliffs towering above them on either side; whatever natural light there was to be had, it didn't reach the bottom of the gorge they were traveling in. Kuvira suspected they were in the Spirit World, and she couldn't stop herself from looking over at Baatar to see his reaction. It wasn't jaw-dropping shock, but his eyes were a little too wide for someone who was indifferent.

Kuvira knew little of the Spirit World, aside from the field of flowers where Korra had managed to connect to her enough that she finally stopped moving down her destructive path. The place where the train was riding through gave her chills, even though it wasn't exactly dark. Maybe it was the fact that there were still no spirits to be found here, in spite of the fact that this was supposed to be their domain. Or maybe it was the way the two cliffs looked like jaws about to snap over them.

Kuvira looked over at her ex, wondering if he knew that they were equals here. Even when her chi blocking wore off, she would not be able to bend. That was another detail she recalled from her previous visit: she could no longer feel the earth beneath her feet in the same way she could in the real world.

Why hadn't the spirits just taken them through the portal? Why go to all the trouble of forcing them to board a train (that she strongly suspected would not have been present in the real world)?

It occurred to her that she had not, for one second, thought it was strange that spirits had trains. Hm.

Eventually the train slowed to a stop, and the doors slid open. Kuvira stood; this time she did wait for Baatar, though he ignored her and left the train first. They emerged onto a deserted, sandstone platform, at a place where both cliffs fell away to reveal what looked like the wide expanse of a desert. It wasn't sand, sand and more sand like the Si Wong Desert in the Earth Kingdom; instead, this desert consisted mostly of redstone, stretching endlessly in all directions except for behind them, where the cliffs towered over them.

The sun was setting ahead.

As soon as the doors closed again, the train sped back the way it had come. Kuvira tugged a little on her restraints; somehow she'd forgotten that she was even handcuffed during that train ride. She couldn't shake the feeling of unease that surrounded her, even though the desert appeared empty and without danger. Maybe it was the way it gaped before them, the dying sunlight making the stone look like it was stained with blood.

"What now?" Baatar asked. "What trial are we supposed to face? Do we cross the desert?"

Kuvira suspected that attempting to go back the way they'd come would prove fruitless, and turning around proved her right: the ravine they had come through had vanished, leaving only a solid rock face. There was no sign of any spirits in any direction. Maybe they were cursed to wander this endless infinity for eternity, or until they starved to death. Did they even need sustenance in the Spirit World? Kuvira didn't know.

"Do we have another option?" she countered. Seeing no other way, she stepped down from the platform and onto the desert, gasping when she suddenly felt the sensation of stone and sand on her soles, between her toes. Her shoes had vanished.

The ground was still baked enough that she almost hissed in pain, but after several deep breaths, she managed to adjust to the sensation. It would cool overnight. She just needed to be patient.

Baatar cringed next to her as the same thing happened to him when he stepped off the platform. "Seems like something out of a myth," he observed dryly, looking down. "Punished by walking across the burning ground with no shoes."

The longer they walked, the more Kuvira found that she didn't actually mind the whole barefoot thing. It was… kind of freeing, in a way.

It took them what was maybe half an hour of traveling before she realized that the sun was never going to set. It had been moving across the sky while they were on the train, but now it seemed destined to hang on the horizon while they traversed the desert. Kuvira looked behind her once or twice to see the cliff receding, but there was no change in the landscape in front of them. Neither of them spoke; their decision to stay together had been subconscious. Kuvira wasn't sure why— Baatar could've gone off on his own. He had every reason to do so.

They walked, but they didn't tire. They probably could have slept if they chose to, but in spite of her better judgment a childish part of Kuvira rebelled at the thought of being that vulnerable.

Every so often, she dropped back a few paces and observed Baatar from behind. His shoulders were hunched, the way they had been before the two of them left Zaofu, and much of the muscle mass he'd gained during their three years as conquerors was missing. He'd kept the haircut, though, and Kuvira had a feeling that his moods were darker, and that he was even more withdrawn.

There were questions she wanted to ask him: did he get along with his siblings again? Had his parents forgiven him? Were they still calling him 'Junior'? How was Opal? Was she still traveling the world, helping those in need? Was Huan still attempting to begin a movement of modern art? What about Zaofu itself? Were the domes being reconstructed?

(Had he moved on? Found someone better?)

They did stop, eventually, if only because they saw no end to the desert. Kuvira sank down in a lotus position, already preparing to meditate in order to pass the time. Sensing a gaze on her, however, she opened her eyes and flicked her gaze to the side, where Baatar sat, watching her.

She straightened her shoulders, joining her hands together and twisting them in her lap.

"I'm sorry, Baatar."

He said nothing, continuing to look at her.

Kuvira had a feeling that this wasn't encouraging, but she tried anyway. "I… you were right, in Republic City. You were right. It wasn't worth it, and I am so sorry."

_None of it was._ It was only after it was all over that she saw the truth: she had nothing. Maybe it was her lot in life, to have nothing, but she had filled that void with what was mostly power. The small bit of love that she had was squandered when she once again chose power, and Baatar had paid the price.

He looked down at his hands. "It's a bit late for that now, don't you think?"

There was a frigidity in his voice that made her gut clench. It was really remarkable that he hadn't exploded at her yet. And here she was, caught between longing for him and _resenting _him. Well, maybe not resenting him, but being jealous of what he had. What right did she have, to resent him for those things? She brought that on herself. Her lack of a family was her own doing.

"I don't suppose you'd like to hear my reasons for it."

"Not particularly."

Kuvira nodded. She had to accept that. She turned her body away from the setting sun (and away from him) and placed her hands on her knees, this time refusing to let his gaze deter her from her attempts at meditation. It wasn't all that fruitful (she never did really get the hang of it, but Korra had told her that it took her ages to get it right, anyway). Still, she did manage about five minutes of clear-headedness before her concentration broke once again.

A shuffling sound alerted her to Baatar moving closer, and she formed a picture of him in her mind. It was a picture of him back in Zaofu, before all of this, when he had bashfully complimented her on her dance performances, blushing when she beamed at him in return. Then it morphed into a picture of him in those three years, when he was confident and collected and their relationship took another turn (neither of them chose to show it outwardly, but it was easy when they were alone). That had been when everyone spat at her and cursed her name, but he held her in the dark and whispered that he loved her.

Then it morphed into him now: a scar on his cheek, thin and drawn, and… tired. She could picture him studying her, still baffled two years later, trying to figure out what it was about her that made everything go wrong.

Giving up the pretense of meditation, she opened her eyes and met his startled ones. He was close enough that she could reach out, and…

Kuvira didn't move.

"What do you want from me?" she asked.

It wasn't an accusatory question. It was her, offering him whatever it was he needed. She made herself as unguarded as possible. Whatever gave him peace, she was willing to give it to him. Even if it rid her of one of the only connections she had left in the world. Even though it hurt.

He flinched back from her. She waited for him to answer, but he didn't.

"We should keep moving," he said eventually. He stood up, and this time he offered her a hand up. She took it, and they continued on their way.

Eventually, something on the edge of the landscape did change. It was a lone outcropping of rock; it looked a bit like a tall man stooped over in the sunlight. Kuvira narrowed her eyes; there was someone standing atop it, staring out at them, waiting for them to approach. It was only as they got closer that she felt her heart jump into her throat as she recognized what it was.

Silver shoulder pauldrons. A crisp, green military uniform. Hands folded behind their back, looking out at them with a stony gaze.

The chill that Kuvira had felt when she first set eyes on the desert was nothing compared to what crept up her spine now, as the figure leapt silently but gracefully down the outcropping. As she walked towards them, she casually raised a hand, and three strips of metal leapt from her uniform, orbiting around her writhing fingers.

Kuvira's steps faltered; Baatar noticed.

"Kuvira?"

The… _thing_ was still coming. It ignored Baatar completely, smirking when it saw Kuvira's fear. Kuvira took another step back, involuntarily forming a fighting stance even though she couldn't earthbend. The Great Uniter looked at her almost pityingly, and without warning the three strips of metal flew at her.

Kuvira twisted and ducked out of the way of the first and the second, but the third caught her right wrist. She couldn't stop herself from crying out as the other Kuvira hoisted her into the air. There was _nothing_ on its face when it looked at her. It used another move she recognized, tearing more metal strips of her uniform and molding them into metal scythes, and bending them at her—

"Kuvira!"

Someone was crying out, and it didn't take long for Kuvira to realize it was herself. She gasped in air, staring at the outcropping from where she was on her knees. A bout of nausea hit her and she doubled over, retching.

"You didn't see it?" she gasped out at Baatar.

He looked utterly bemused. "See what?"

Kuvira opened her mouth again, then closed it. She tried to steady herself, unsure of why the sight had been so horrifying. She'd been struck by severe bouts of guilt and self-loathing in her cell over the past two years, but this was… not the same. Was that what she looked like, when she stood over her victims? Was that how Korra had seen her when she was preparing to kill her outside Zaofu?

Spirits, and the Avatar had _forgiven_ her.

"It's nothing," she replied. She stood on shaky legs. Whatever that had been— a trick, a hallucination— it was gone now, and nothing could be done about it. They moved closer to the outcropping, finding that it was even larger than they'd first estimated as they got closer. It really did look like a man stooped over, as though carrying some great weight on its back.

Considering Kuvira's double had been atop it earlier, it was almost fitting.

"Does it mean something?" Baatar mused. "I still just see desert everywhere else."

"I don't know." Silently, Kuvira thanked the spirits that her voice was steady. She moved closer to the stone, walking around one of the legs before shrugging at Baatar. She wasn't sure what the purpose of this desert was— to drive them insane? If so it seemed to be working, considering the hallucination she'd had just now. Baatar joined her at the base of the outcropping.

"Someone didn't want their sculpture and dumped it out here, I suppose," he said dryly, resting one of his hands on it.

The moment his hand made contact with the stone, it was like everything stopped. Kuvira sucked in a breath as something like a wave spread out from all of them, changing the landscape entirely. Everywhere, desert gave way to large, skeletal black trees sitting in pools of murky water. There were noises here, and she thought she could see movement, but overall it was almost worse than the desert. She turned in place, seeing that (like the desert) it was the same in all directions.

Baatar gawked. "So we just had to touch it?"

It didn't seem like much of a punishment.

"That's where you're wrong."

Both of them whirled around, to where a shadowed figure stood on the massive roots of one of the trees. The being jumped down a moment later, landing in the murky water with a splash. Kuvira glanced up, noticing that the statue had turned to wood— it still looked like a man, but it was clearly now a tree, rather than a rock. She turned her attention back to the newcomer, surprised to see that it wasn't a spirit at all.

Even with the abundance of hair, he was recognizable.

"It figures that your prison turned out to not be much of a prison," she said.

Zaheer gave her a pitying look. "Your mind is _your_ prison, Great Uniter," he said, disgust in his voice. Kuvira managed to stop herself from flinching at the way he addressed her, but he seemed to notice anyway. "You fail to see it. Either way, this isn't a reprieve from what you had before."

"Then what is it?" Baatar asked.

"This is just you going deeper. I can't say what might have happened if you continued to traverse the desert— had you been patient, you may have found some other way. You blind yourselves by believing your path to be the righteous one, so it's no surprise that you ended up here. I have to warn you, this is probably your final destination."

"However friendly you may be with the spirits," Kuvira said, "I'm surprised that they let you be privy to their plans for us."

Zaheer shrugged. "It's all any of the spirits have been able to speak of for days. It's hard _not _to hear about it."

Kuvira moved carefully (her cuffed hands meant her balance was off) down from the statue of the man hunched over, stepping into the pool to stand in front of Zaheer. The water was lukewarm, and made her shudder slightly, but she stood her ground, drawing herself to full height.

"My path was never righteous," she said. "And I'm not so foolish as to believe that this is the path to redemption. What's waiting for us here?"

Baatar slid into the knee-deep water next to her, but he said nothing.

Zaheer studied her. "I can see it now," he said after a moment. "How you managed to inspire enough people to unite the Earth Kingdom in three years. For one so young, you possess a remarkable amount of charisma and confidence. I can see the person I would have destroyed, had I been free to do so. I'm not fond of despots."

"And I'm not fond of anarchists who take action without regard for the consequences because of their own selfish wishes," Kuvira replied.

"Regardless of that," Baatar cut in, annoyance in his voice. "Would you answer the question, Zaheer?"

Zaheer looked away from them both. "A spirit. He… likes visitors."

"Just when I thought you couldn't get more ominous," Baatar muttered. Kuvira snorted, ignoring Baatar's surprised look. She opened her mouth to tell Zaheer that they would find a way of dealing with it, but the Red Lotus member had vanished. She'd forgotten that his corporeal form wasn't here— he could leave any time he wanted. She and Baatar, on the other hand, were stuck.

"What do you suppose he meant?" Baatar asked.

"Nothing good."

Kuvira waded through the water, making her way around the trees. It seemed that this was meant to be more walking. There was some kind of monkey-like spirit sitting on one of the roots, but it looked at her and Baatar before harrumphing and stalking away. She gathered that it was not the spirit that Zaheer had spoken of. A few times she saw movement out of the corner of her eye, coupled with a flash of green and silver, and for once she did not look.

Seeing that they had nothing better to do, she spoke to Baatar.

"Why follow me?" she asked him. "Based on your letter, I would have believed you were done with following me."

"I reasoned that we had a better chance of getting through this by sticking together."

She'd come to that conclusion as well, but neither of them were rational beings when it came to emotion. Working together— that dynamic had come back easily. Too easily. The unspoken tension was still there, however, and she could see the anger simmering below the surface. Kuvira was keeping her own resentment under wraps, burying it deep down where no one could find it. She knew it infuriated him— how calm she was. How accepting she was.

Her apology wasn't enough— not that she'd ever expected it to be.

"I regretted sending that letter the moment I placed it in the mailbox," he said. "A lot of it was true, but a lot of it was my anger speaking for me."

"You were right to let it."

"Was I?" Baatar started pacing, as much as the water would allow. "That's what I did, when I left Zaofu. I let my anger at my parents cloud any judgment I might've had. Soon it became anger at those who resisted us— how could they not see? Why couldn't they accept that what we were doing was for the betterment of everyone? It was that anger that blinded me to the horrors we caused."

Kuvira remembered a night in Ba Sing Se, their first time visiting after they had succeeded in stabilizing everything. She remembered when they came under attack from a group of bandits who were rebelling against the officers she'd left in charge of the city. She remembered seeing the face of a woman she had recognized, and remembered the cold rage that rose up within her. She remembered Baatar standing next to her, looking equally furious, while she snarled at her men to take them away.

_This isn't about you, _she reminded herself.

"I won't deny that the letter hurt," she said, "but I deserved every word. I don't take pride in anything I've done, Baatar. There are a lot of things I wish I could take back. What happened to you was…high, on that list."

"High." He laughed bitterly. "Not at the top, I suppose?"

"We both know there are things that mean more than either of us." Against her better judgment, Kuvira moved towards him and settled a hand on his back. "It was when we refused to accept that— that was when we started making so many mistakes."

He shrugged her off. "Are you sure _you_ refused to accept that? You certainly put the empire above us."

"That wasn't what I meant. There are some lines that shouldn't be crossed, and I crossed them."

Kuvira turned around— she knew that the conversation was lost— but was surprised to hear him say, "_We_ crossed them."

She started wading again, but he kept talking. She didn't say anything, allowing him to continue while he explained to her that this wasn't the way he'd been expecting things to go. He'd always had something prepared for the day when he would come face-to-face with her again, but it had all gone out the window when the spirit took him to the train station. He had thought their meeting would take place in the Republic City Jail visiting room, after her trial, when he was able to sit at the table across from her and look her in the eye and tell her that they were done. It was harder here, when they had to rely on one another.

Kuvira sighed, too quietly for Baatar to hear. He had been planning on leaving her, then. She had long ago resigned herself to having only Korra in her life, and yet…

He trailed off after a while, leaving a heavy silence between them.

"I'll get you out of the spirit world, Baatar," she told him. "After that, you can consider it a goodbye. You won't have to see me again."

"Is that what you want?"

Kuvira stopped. She couldn't look at him, because she couldn't tell him what he needed to hear. Her gut clenched in a way that it had not since Republic City— since she had made the decision to give him up, if it meant destroying the Avatar. Against her will, she felt her hands clench into fists at her sides. In her moment of panic, she forgot her meditation techniques. She heard water sloshing, which meant he was moving to stand next to her, which meant any moment now he would see—

"Well, well."

The voice was deep, and startling. Kuvira felt herself freeze up, though this time it was for a different reason. Three years of practice meant that she composed herself for this newcomer instantly— and it was that reaction, ultimately, that saved her.

The _thing_ that slithered out from between two of the trees had to be a spirit. Even so, it was the most horrifying spirit she'd ever had the misfortune to lay eyes on (not that she saw many spirits). Even the spirit draped in white that had greeted them at the station didn't instill fear in her the way this one did, although she suspected that that spirit had been more dangerous. It looked like a giant centipede, with a man's face at the end, the mouth moving in time with the words, though the voice was deep and seemed to come from all around them.

"Such esteemed visitors," it purred.

"Whatever you do, Kuvira," Baatar said, his tone oddly monotone. "Do not show emotion." Kuvira glanced at him to see that his face was blank. If Baatar had been willing to shove down all of his emotions in front of this being, that meant that Kuvira should heed his advice.

"I see your friend is well-learned, Kuvira," the thing said. It coiled around the both of them, as though herding them together, and Kuvira wound up back-to-back with Baatar, feeling slightly ashamed at how comforting his warmth was. "Pity that the Avatar isn't with you. I'd have liked to see my old friend again."

Kuvira had a feeling that this was one spirit that Korra should never go near.

"Is there something you'd like?" she asked politely.

The thing moved very close to her. Kuvira recognized it as an intimidation tactic, but it took everything she had not to appear startled when its face abruptly changed. This time, it was the face of a child with black hair, grinning toothily at her.

"It's been so long since I've had visitors," it said. "Especially ones as interesting as yourselves. Kuvira, the Great Uniter, and the engineer that was able to discover how to use the spirit vines in the first place, Baatar Jr. Beifong. I daresay we could discuss you for hours."

"There isn't much to tell," said Baatar.

"No?" It scuttled away from her, no doubt about to attempt the same startling tactic on Baatar. Kuvira was tempted to take his hand for reassurance, but she knew that he might be caught off guard by that, and then she'd have doomed him. She settled for leaning back into him, briefly allowing her expression to soften while she had the respite. There was something about this spirit's presence that was draining to her.

"We could discuss the consequences," the spirit said. "We could discuss how the spirits were in agony because of your actions. We make a point not to get involved in human wars, but do you know how many were writhing in pain? There was a point where one too many spirits said, 'No more', and you were brought here. The only time I have ever interfered in the lives of humans was when I punished that fool, Kuruk, but with you two… oh, I was tempted."

"What do you want to hear?" This was the kind of conversation that Kuvira had had with multiple visitors in the past two years— with Korra herself, with Asami Sato, with Su. "That I was swept up by power, that eventually I became so fixated on what I was convinced was 'good' that I blinded myself to the bad. Or maybe that I knew what I was doing all along, and that my people were suffering, but that I didn't care because I kept telling myself that it would all work out for the best in the end?"

While spoke, the spirit moved around to stare at her again.

"It's been two years," Kuvira said. "I have already said everything I can say. Do you want me to say it again?"

She wondered if the spirit knew of the first year in prison, when she had stared at her wooden cutlery and contemplated plunging the knife into her abdomen. Or when she waited until night, when the guards would not hear, and vivid flashes of the horrors that might have been went through her mind— Opal dead, the airbenders (many of whom were _children_) dead, Republic City burnt to the ground while she sat on a throne of ashes. She thought of the time when she refused to eat for almost a week, until Korra came during her next visit and noticed her condition. That conversation was mostly a blur, but something Korra had said had motivated Kuvira to start living again.

That was when she started working out in her cell, or meditating— anything to clear her head of those thoughts, but at night she still had endless nightmares. There was nothing to be done about the little sleep she got, and it was one of the afflictions that she never was able to get over. The only way Kuvira could sleep these days was by working out until she passed out from exhaustion; it only got her about two or three hours a night, but she made do.

Kuvira wondered if the spirit knew what she lost, that first year. The day she'd woken up with a start to find blood on her cot.

Its smile twisted, became uglier than before. "Should I take your fiance's face?" it asked. "It's not pretty, but it might do."

Baatar tensed up behind her.

"Go right ahead," she said. "I won't miss it."

The thing stopped moving altogether, its gaze fixed on hers. Kuvira didn't flinch, didn't buckle, didn't so much as think of looking away from it, even for a moment. She slid back into her old façade easily— almost too easily. It wasn't Kuvira who looked back at the spirit threatening the one person she didn't think she could stand to lose.

It was the Great Uniter.

The thing laughed then— deep and reverberating. Not at all comforting.

"Perhaps you ought to have been a waterbender," it said, "considering how cold that was."

"What if I made you a deal," Kuvira said. "You take my face, and in exchange he gets to leave this place unharmed. Maybe I think too much of myself, but I'd think the face of the Great Uniter would be quite an addition to your collection."

"Ah, you do amuse me, human," it said. "But as a matter of fact, since your actions did not affect me personally (and goodness knows the other spirits are not altogether fond of me), I'm willing to be merciful. You have, in my mind, already paid your dues."

So he did know, then.

"I don't suppose you'll be willing to tell us the way out, then?" Baatar asked.

"Nice try, human." It slowly uncoiled itself from around the two of them, but even then Kuvira did not relax. "No, you will just have to walk and walk, until you find what you're looking for. And if either one of you so much as smiles, I will know, and I will find you."

Kuvira took that to mean that they still couldn't show emotion. She would have to ask Baatar to explain that, when they were safe.

The spirit slithered away from them into the darkness of the forest. She watched its great body go, keeping her face expressionless. She was thankful that its attempts at unnerving them were fruitless.

Kuvira couldn't remember which way they had been going when the spirit first intercepted them, so she chose a direction and started wading through the stagnant water again. Baatar did so as well. She knew that there were things he wanted to say, but like her he dared not speak, lest his emotion show through his voice.

Unlike the desert (which had seemed endless), it wasn't long before the forest began to lighten, and the trees started to look younger. She still didn't know if they were safe (the feeling of unease had yet to depart), when movement caught the corner of her eye. Expecting to see the spirit return, Kuvira made the mistake of looking.

Her doppelganger was back.

This time it didn't approach her, merely watching her with a face just as expressionless as her own. Kuvira made herself look away from it, knowing that it wasn't really there, and that this was not the time or the place for her to break down again— it would only attract the spirit's attention. Unable to stop herself from looking back at it again, she was startled (not outwardly) to see that it had vanished.

It became very apparent when they escaped the spirit's domain, because they found themselves in an open, grassy field. It was like some weight left Kuvira then, allowing her to straighten her shoulders. Baatar's soft exhale of relief echoed her own.

"Thank you," he said.

"For?"

"Whether what you said was true or not, I think you may have saved my life back there."

"I said I would get you out," she replied. "I intend to follow through on that. And… for what it's worth, it wasn't true. You mean a great deal to me."

They stood in silence after that, staring out over the rolling hills, which were dotted with white flowers here and there. Kuvira didn't think she'd ever seen a green so vibrant. The only thing that was off was that the sky was a vivid violet, as opposed to the blue that she was used to, and there was no sign of the sun anywhere. It was better than the desert, though, and the disgusting swamp behind them.

"That was Koh," Baatar explained. "I've read stories about him in the past. Supposedly, if you show emotion in his presence, he steals your face. I never really believed it, but I didn't want to risk it being true. Anyway… does any of this seem off to you?"

"I'll admit that none of it has really seemed like a punishment so far," Kuvira said. "Yes, facing Koh was difficult, in its own way, but for the most part nothing truly _bad_ has happened."

"Hm." Baatar looked at her. "What did Koh mean when he said that you've already paid your dues?"

Kuvira didn't answer. She didn't think she could.

"Let's keep moving," she said. "We might as well find out what else the spirits have in store for us."


	2. Part II

**A/N: **Alright, here's part two! This is also the final part of this story. Hope you enjoy!

**Warning: **there are mentions of miscarriage. Nothing explicit, though.

* * *

><p><strong>On the Edge of Damnation<strong>

**Part II**

"Aw, man!" came a nervous squeak. "We're not supposed to be here!"

Kuvira frowned at the clump of bushes, from which a tiny voice had emerged for the umpteenth time while she and Baatar rested in the grass. It was obvious that there were spirits hiding in them, but after the first voice had started freaking out, she and Baatar made an unspoken agreement to leave whoever it was alone. If the spirits didn't want to be bothered, then she had no reason to bother them.

It was getting a little annoying, though. She was willing to look the other way while the spirits snuck off, but they never did (even though she did deliberately look away for ten minutes at a time, waiting for the spirits to seize their chance). There was no sign of them leaving, and she was starting to think that the spirits didn't actually want to stop spying on her and Baatar, but were acting nervous about it so as to keep them from doing anything aggressive.

"We should probably get moving," she said to Baatar, a little more loudly than necessary. He nodded, also glancing at the shrubs, both of them waiting to see what move the spirits would make in response to them leaving. Kuvira moved more slowly than usual when she stood up, taking a moment to stretch and feel muscles and joints pop. She didn't miss the way Baatar's eyes followed her movements, but she did nothing to encourage it, either. They still weren't comfortable with each other.

They were just a few paces away from their resting place when another of the voices cried, "Wait!"

Kuvira couldn't stop herself from smirking a little, looking back to see a few tiny wood spirits venturing out for the first time. One was a pink bird, another had four arms, and the third looked like a tree stump (and hobbled around with more difficulty than the other two). She folded her arms, raising an eyebrow.

The one with four arms folded both sets of hands. "Could you… help us?"

The bird pecked it. "Shh, stupid! Don't you know who they are? They're about the least-spirity humans you could find! They're pure evil."

"Uh, then how did they end up in the spirit world?"

"I told you," moaned the stump. "We're not supposed to be here…"

Kuvira and Baatar exchanged bemused looks. Learning to become patient with herself meant that Kuvira was much more patient with others, so she simply waited while the three spirits hemmed and hawed amongst themselves, each trying to shove the other in front so that they didn't have to be the one to actually address her and Baatar. Eventually, the one with four arms was the spirit to step up (again), while the bird hid its face behind a wing and the stump slumped to the ground.

"We're lost," the little thing proclaimed.

"Isn't the spirit world your home?" asked Baatar.

"Hey!" squawked the bird. "You humans get lost in the material world often enough, yeah? Don't act like it's impossible for us!"

"If that's the case, you're probably not better off following us," Kuvira said. "We're in the middle of walking penance road right now, and I doubt you want to be trailing behind us when we run into whatever else this place has in store for us."

"See? I told you," said the stump. "That's Kuvira and Baatar Jr. Those are the guys who attacked the spirit vines!"

The four armed one shrugged. "I don't remember that."

The bird whacked its head into the ground.

Kuvira sighed, keeping a respectable distance but kneeling down to their level. "I'm not sure of how much help we could be," she explained. "As your friend said, we're about the least-spirity humans around. We don't know our way around any better than you do, and I'm pretty sure out path is set out for us anyway. You're probably better off picking any direction except the one we choose, and hoping for the best." She paused. "Except that way."

She pointed back the direction they'd come from.

"Why?" asked the four-armed spirit. "What's back there?"

"A big, scary monster," answered Baatar. He knelt next to Kuvira, leaning over so that only she could hear. "What if we're meant to help them, Kuvira?"

She glanced at him. That was a thought— perhaps helping these three little spirits was another task or test that she and Baatar had to overcome before they were permitted to leave the spirit world. It was strange to think about— she'd grown so used to thinking of herself helping the masses of citizens in the Earth Empire that she forgot what it was like to help individuals at all. The closest she'd come since leaving her prison was to help Baatar through this place— and that didn't really count, since he'd been helping her just as much (even if he didn't know it).

She looked at the spirits. "Where are you trying to go?" she asked.

The bird looked at her suspiciously. "We were trying to get to the tree of time," it replied. "We're not sure how we ended up here. If you manage to get us to a big mountain with blue flowers growing on it, though, then we'll know where we are. There are a couple of other places too— if we recognized them, we'd tell you. But that doesn't mean we need your help!"

"We kind of do, though," said the stump.

"Ugh, make up your mind! Are you on my side or not?"

"So, we're looking for a mountain with blue flowers?" asked Baatar.

"Yep!" piped up the four-armed one. "That'll work!"

It seemed reasonable enough. Kuvira asked, "May we know your names, since you know ours?"

"No!"

"I'm Rafflin."

"…Barke."

Both the stump (Barke) and the four-armed one (Rafflin) looked at the bird, who angrily shuffled its feet before muttering, "Stingwing."

Kuvira and Baatar both bowed, forming the sign of respect with their hands. That, at least, seemed to mollify Stingwing somewhat. Rafflin beamed at them.

"See? They're nice."

"So…" Barke moved closer. "Where do we go?"

"Thus far, our philosophy has been to pick a direction and walk," Baatar replied. At Kuvira's look, he shrugged. "We aren't going to get anywhere by lying. And we've already told them that we have no idea where we are. The very least we can do is protect them on their way."

He had a point.

"How are you gonna protect us?" asked Stingwing. "You can't even bend here. And considering that you're the least spirity people ever, you don't have the kind of power that the Avatar has."

Kuvira nodded. "That's true. I've witnessed the Avatar's power firsthand. She used it to save my life, and countless others. But I can promise that I'll do everything within _my_ power to see you safely on your way. While that may not seem like much, I've often found that a little determination can go a long way to accomplishing your goals— no matter how distant those goals may seem."

Rafflin gaped at her in awe. Barke didn't seem to be paying attention anymore, while Stingwing grumbled something but didn't complain. Kuvira indicated that they would go in the opposite direction of the light; there was still no sign of any sun, but the purple glare seemed strongest to the left, and so they headed away from that direction. Baatar once again caught up to her, muttering for her ears only.

"Nice inspirational speech."

She elbowed him, but couldn't seem to stop her smile.

Once the spirits got the gist of where they were headed, they hopped in front of the two of them, chattering amongst themselves. Kuvira could barely follow the conversation, but she caught some strange phrases that she'd never heard before and couldn't make heads or tails of. Of the three, Rafflin seemed the picture of endless optimism, as though it believed that nothing bad could possibly happen. Stingwing suited his name a little too well, muttering jabs about Kuvira and Baatar most of the way. Barke was silent, apart from an occasional input in what Stingwing or Rafflin were saying. Back in her days as the Great Uniter, Kuvira might have found their jibber-jabber annoying, but at the moment she preferred it to Koh's ghastly presence, or the silence of the desert.

They eventually came across a small creek, running between two hills. Rafflin splashed in without a second thought, leaving Kuvira to keep a wary eye on it so that the spirit didn't somehow get swept away by the current. The little thing looked chubbier than both Barke and Stingwing, but for some reason Kuvira had a feeling that it was lighter than its companions. Stingwing contented itself with placing both its stick-like feet in the water, and Barke settled in the center of the stream, humming.

Kuvira and Baatar settled themselves a little way back, with Kuvira still watching Rafflin.

"To think we might've destroyed this," she murmured, mostly to herself.

"Mm," Baatar agreed, startling her. "I didn't really appreciate the evil science was capable of, until I really started looking at the destruction of Republic City. Once I believed it was our duty to follow a discovery until all possibilities were mapped out and measured, but now… now it seems like most of it wasn't worth it. Who will be there to keep people like us in check? The ones who get too curious for their own good, I mean."

Kuvira, it seemed, was never sure of what to say to him. Testing the waters, she started with, "I pushed you to that, Baatar."

"No you didn't."

The bitterness in his voice nearly made her recoil, until she realized that it wasn't bitterness towards her.

"When I looked at the spirit vine project, I didn't see a weapon," Baatar said. "All I saw was an opportunity. A way to change the world for the better. With that kind of technology, our ability to protect the empire would be absolute— no nation would dare to challenge us and cross our borders. I saw a beacon of hope. I saw a way that we could provide security the likes of which the world had never seen."

Kuvira laughed. "I didn't. I saw a way to spread our 'enlightenment' to the rest of the world. If Avatar Korra hadn't stopped me in Republic City, who knows what I would have done next— invaded the Fire Nation? Reduced the water tribes to shattered ice? Enslaved the air nomads, as Hou Ting once dared to do?"

"But which is worse?" Baatar looked at her, something like despair and confusion in his gaze. "Willing blindness, or cold reality?"

Maybe, those two years in prison, Kuvira had convinced herself that she really had brainwashed Baatar into working for her as long as he did— into loving her. She had convinced herself that he followed her only because she fed his sense of self-worth in a way that his family never did, and in return she had his undying loyalty and support, even when few others gave that to her. She'd convinced herself that he was eventually blinded to what he was doing by his love for her.

Now she understood— that hadn't been the case at all.

"If they had let me out—" She swallowed, her throat going dry. "If they had let me out during your trial, to testify, I would have said I forced you into it. I would have told them all that. But that was never what you wanted, was it?"

It was risky, implying that he had _wanted_ punishment. For some reason, however, it worked better than any of her previous attempts at reconciliation.

"No," he admitted. "Do you remember— near the factory outside Zaofu, when we were first testing the weapon, and I told you to stop the test?"

"Yes. You never told me why."

"I looked through the telescope." He swallowed, looking stricken. "And I saw Opal. Opal, who was trying to rescue Zhu Li. I have never been more grateful for anything in my life than I was when Aunt Lin and Mother knocked the beam off-course. I was never more grateful than I was when I realized I wasn't responsible for my little sister's death."

Kuvira could understand that. That had been month number five of her imprisonment— silently thanking whatever spirits hadn't forsaken her that every one of her beams missed the children of the Air Nation, and that of all that could have died in her attack, there was only one casualty. And then there were other nights, when she wept bitterly for Asami Sato's loss in spite of the fact that it was not hers to weep over. No doubt Miss Sato would have strangled her, had she known.

She nearly did, the one night (day?) she visited.

"But I won't," Sato had said. "I won't, because I'm _never_ going to stoop to _your _level."

Now all Kuvira could say was, "I'm grateful, too."

"Oof!" Without warning, Rafflin bounced to the ground in front of Kuvira, flopping onto its back. "I'm tired."

Kuvira was surprised to find herself chuckling. "Maybe you shouldn't have played so long, little one."

"Who're you calling little?" barked Stingwing.

"You," Baatar responded.

"I'm sleepy," mumbled Rafflin. Kuvira almost missed the worried looks that Barke and Stingwing exchanged with one another. Neither of them looked any different than when Baatar and Kuvira had first discovered them— in fact, time in the stream seemed to have bolstered Barke until he looked larger, and more fully grown. She found herself frowning— what could be wrong this time?

"Would it be alright if I carried you?" she asked Rafflin. (It didn't escape her that she and Baatar didn't even belong in the spirit world, and they had yet to grow tired as well.) She half expected Stingwing to offer up some kind of objection to her suggestion, but to her surprise the bird spirit stayed silent.

"Mm-hmm," Rafflin said. "That's fine."

Kuvira carefully gathered the four-armed spirit into her arms, arranging it so that it would be as comfortable as possible. She couldn't stop the warm feeling that spread through her when it burrowed its head into her bicep, as though it was taking comfort from her. The idea itself was a shock— seeing it actually happen was even more of one. She looked up to see Baatar watching her with an unreadable gaze.

Suddenly nervous, Kuvira breathed in deeply. "Do either of you need any help?" she asked the other two spirits.

Both shook their heads.

The purple light was beginning to fade when they started off again, but Kuvira thought she could see a tree line in the distance— one that was much less foreboding than the one they had left behind after exiting Koh's domain. Unlike before, Stingwing was silent the entire way, and because Stingwing didn't speak, Barke did not speak. She could sense the worry radiating from the two spirits, and had a feeling that it had something to do with Rafflin's sudden lethargy. Her earlier suspicions had been confirmed when she'd picked Rafflin up— it was much lighter than she might have expected just by looking at it.

The forest they entered was a bit more like a normal forest— pines surrounded them, like the Earth Kingdom forests in the north, but the needles were soft beneath their feet. Rafflin didn't stir once, and Kuvira found herself sharing the worry that Stingwing and Barke had. She couldn't think what could be wrong with the spirit, or why the others weren't affected by it.

"Would you like me to carry it for a while?" Baatar asked. Kuvira was tempted to refuse, but she took one look at his face, and then passed the spirit to him wordlessly. He was as gentle as she had been, if not more so, and she saw that he was as worried for Rafflin as the rest of them were.

Knowing that the little spirit was in safe hands (for now), she offered to scout ahead. This time Stingwing did protest, but Baatar quickly countered it.

"She's made me a promise," he said. "I know she won't break it."

Stingwing turned its glare on Kuvira, but she held it until the spirit looked away.

The last thing she heard was it muttering, "How are humans this stubborn?"

Kuvira ran through the trees without abandon, the feeling of freedom far overshadowing any tiredness she might've felt. Every so often she stopped and marked a tree with a cross to guide her on her way back, silently apologizing to each tree she marked. Even without her bending she felt like she was somehow powerful in this place, where the earth felt whole beneath her feet and her senses were sharp.

The trees came to an abrupt end after about an hour of running through them, after which she found herself staring at a mountain with blue flowers growing on its slopes. She marveled at their luck in picking the right direction to where the three spirits wanted to go, then maybe considered that it hadn't been luck at all.

_It wouldn't be so terrible, _she thought, _to stay here. _

Even as the thought crossed her mind, however, Kuvira banished it from her head. Even when she had been the Great Uniter— even before then, she had never run from anything in her life. The last thing she was going to run away from was her own fate, whatever it might be. Even though she had no doubt that mistrust in her would be heightened even more, once she and Baatar returned to the physical world, she could not afford to run from it. This was only the punishment from the spirits. She still had a penance to pay to humans as well.

(And that was far more personal, and painful, but she would face it nonetheless.)

Turning back, she hurried the way she'd come, although her search for the trees she'd marked meant that the going was slower than before. After what seemed like another two hours of running, she almost crashed into Stingwing, narrowly avoiding it by leaping up and into a neat forward roll, managing to somehow land on her feet. Barke yelped, and Stingwing squawked again.

"I've found your mountain," she said.

Clearly, that wasn't what Stingwing had been expecting. "Oh," it said, after a moment. "Well… good. We need to get there as quickly as possible."

Kuvira looked at Baatar, who was still carrying Rafflin. He shook his head. "Rafflin hasn't woken up," he announced. "Maybe you two could explain to us what's wrong."

"Look, we just need to get to the top of the mountain," snapped Stingwing. "The Tree of Time would've been better, but the mountain'll do. After that, everything's going to be fine. You two can go on your merry way and do… whatever it is you're supposed to do."

Kuvira shook her head, wondering if there was any point in arguing. "I'll take Rafflin," she muttered quietly, grateful when Baatar didn't protest, instead passing the weak spirit back to her. They trooped wordlessly through the rest of the wood, with both spirits hopping in front of them impatiently. Kuvira found herself increasing their pace, but doing so didn't really matter; it was hard for her to tire here. Which only made her more aware of the fact that Rafflin kept weakening.

It seemed to take them forever to reach the base of the mountain— far longer than it had taken Kuvira to get there initially. Stingwing and Barke started to hop up the slopes of it without even pausing, but Kuvira halted for a moment when Rafflin stirred. She waved for Baatar to go on ahead, not wanting to jostle the spirit too much if it was waking up.

"It was the metal things," it murmured, blinking up at her. "The metal things hurt us."

Kuvira's heart clenched. She had a feeling that she knew what it was talking about. Rafflin's eyes slid closed again, only this time the 'sleep' seemed more unnatural than before. Kuvira blinked, realizing that she could see her arms through its body, and she knew that they were running out of time.

She ran to catch up with the others, but she didn't stop running once she had. Instead she kept going, determination helping her keep pace, ignoring the alarmed look Baatar sent after her. Both Stingwing and Barke gave indignant cries when they noticed her, trying in vain to pick up the pace to catch up to her. Kuvira didn't care. She kept running.

The mountain slope leveled out, until she found herself on the edge of a pool of water.

"Is this going to help?" she murmured to herself.

"That's what we were hoping," panted Stingwing, pulling itself up after her. "There are stories about how this water is supposed to restore spiritual properties. Like I said— the Tree of Time would've been better, but this was the next best thing. If it can't help Rafflin, well… there's no time to get to the Tree now."

Kuvira frowned. "Do we just put Rafflin in the water?"

"No, that's dumb."

She rolled her eyes.

"There's someone here who can help us," Stingwing continued, just as Baatar and Barke joined them. "I don't know where she is, but—"

"I am not sure of what aid I can be, Stingwing."

Kuvira started, not having noticed the woman who was suddenly next to her. She was obviously a spirit, wreathed in some kind of opaque cloth that looked more like mist. Her face and body was adorned with red paint, but for someone so beautiful, her visage was alarmingly sad.

She gestured to Rafflin. "The damage done to this spirit's connection with existence was extensive. I have seen cases like this before, where the spirit is beyond my reach. I can try to heal him, little ones, but I cannot promise you that I will succeed."

"Please, Painted Lady?" Barke begged. "Rafflin's our friend. He's been losing himself for a while now— but it took him longer than it took some of the other spirits, so I know that he can make it. Please!"

"Very well. Place him in the water." This instruction was given to Kuvira, who obeyed without questioning. "Before we begin, I must ask— how did you convince the creators of Rafflin's suffering to help you?"

"So it was us," Kuvira said. "I wondered. Rafflin said 'the metal things'— meaning the saws we used to harvest vines for the spirit weapon, I'm guessing."

It was another thing to add— to all of the horror she'd inflicted. Rafflin was dying because of her.

"Your actions did not come without a price," warned the Painted Lady. "Many more spirits like Rafflin faded from our world, their spiritual connection severed. I have had many come here in search of my aid. Many others went to the Tree of Time, as that place is stronger, but even then there were some who could not make it, and passed into the void. Rafflin's resilience surprises me, as most who were affected have already either been helped or passed beyond help."

"They didn't convince us, we… volunteered."

"We were told that we might find help," Barke said, speaking for the first time. "We weren't told who would help us."

"We certainly didn't expect it from _them_," added Stingwing.

"Hm." The Painted Lady looked at her with eyes that made Kuvira think of rivers. "Place Rafflin in the water, Kuvira."

By now used to every spirit knowing who she was, Kuvira did as she was told. The little spirit didn't stir when it touched the surface of the pool, and she was silently thankful that it floated instead of sinking like a stone. She backed away from the pool's edge as the Painted Lady stepped forward, raising her hands in a gesture that Kuvira thought she recognized from the waterbender healer who had tended to her wounds shortly after her surrender. She hardly noticed when Baatar moved to stand next to her, or when Barke and Stingwing did the same on the other side.

_I did this,_ she thought. _Rafflin was innocent. I did this._

The saws had cut deep into the tree in the swamp, and she hadn't even flinched.

Some of the transparency of Rafflin began to lessen, but it didn't leave his body entirely, and one glance at the Painted Lady's face told Kuvira that she was beginning to feel strained by her task. The entire time, Rafflin did not move or wake up.

Eventually, the water spirit's arms dropped to her sides, and she turned to look at Stingwing and Barke, shaking her head. "I'm sorry."

"No…" mumbled Barke, but Stingwing rounded on Kuvira and Baatar.

"This is your fault!" it shrieked. "Yours! You couldn't leave well enough alone, could you? You couldn't just be happy with the power that you had, could you? Stupid humans, always looking for _more._ That's what Sozin did. That's what Ozai did. That's what Unalaq did, and he made us suffer even more than you did, but oh, it was close."

Kuvira felt a wave of shame and bitterness wash over her. She looked out over the pool, and saw the Great Uniter staring at her from the opposite side. Her gaze was non-judgmental, but it was also… cold. Careless. An iron façade, one that had seemed necessary at the time. She felt fear begin to take hold of her again, because she didn't think she could handle facing that monster right now.

_I don't need the façade,_ she thought. She straightened.

"All due respect, Painted Lady," she said, "but that can't be all."

"I have done everything I can, Kuvira," the Painted Lady said, sounding truly angry for the first time.

"And what about what _I _can do?" demanded Kuvira. The other spirit looked taken aback. "You're a healer. A master healer, if your reputation is anything to go by. We can't always fix things on our own, with rest and recuperation. Sometimes outside help is needed. Use me."

"Kuvira," Baatar said, but he fell silent. She didn't even have to look at him.

The Painted Lady now looked thoughtful. "I am not certain of how I would be able to use you to heal Rafflin," she said. "I could possibly convert your energy into enough spiritual energy to mend his link with our world, but that would come at a cost to you. I do not know how great of one."

"Do it."

"Are you certain that this is what you want?"

Kuvira shook her head. "What I want doesn't matter." She sent a challenging look to her doppelganger on the far side, who curled her lip in response. She'd spent two years thinking about ways she could try to atone for her sins. This wasn't how she expected to start, but she wasn't about to let another die because of her crusade.

"One life," the Painted Lady murmured. "When there are so many more who suffered. Is it worth it?"

Kuvira just looked at her.

"If I may, I'd like to help as well," Baatar said.

Kuvira's lips were already forming the shape of the word 'no', but he laid a hand on her arm, surprising her. "I don't need your protection," he muttered. Now _he_ sounded angry. "You don't control me. You never did. You can't now, either."

"I am afraid she's right, Baatar," the Painted Lady interjected. "Channeling two energies at once is beyond me, stopping in the middle so that you can replace her is more dangerous than you know. It must be either one or neither of you."

Kuvira nodded. "What do I have to do?"

"Merely stand in the water."

She stepped forward, noticing with a chill that the water felt neither warm nor cold when her feet became submerged. She locked eyes with the Great Uniter on the other bank and didn't look away, unwilling to give the doppelganger the satisfaction of seeing her falter. Try as she might, however, she couldn't quite convince herself that she wasn't afraid— of what might happen, or of what she herself would do if her doppelganger decided to attack her like it had in the desert.

"I do not know how this will feel," the Painted Lady warned, "but try to relax."

_Encouraging, _Kuvira was tempted to say, but the shock of sensation that hit her next kept her from speaking. The image of her old self flickered and faded away, replaced by flashes of what seemed like a nightmare. The taste of blood filled her mouth, making her realizing that she was biting her tongue to keep from screaming, and she had to force her jaw to unclench.

It wasn't… pain, exactly. More like a yawning pit had opened up somewhere in her stomach and she was falling down it, over and over and with increasing speed. She felt that she would fall down into the water at any moment, but she miraculously managed to stay upright the entire time. All the while she had vague visions of screeching metal and phantom pain, and cries coming from all around her of what she knew must've been other spirits.

Suddenly, her other self was right in front of her. She grasped Kuvira's shoulder firmly, in a way that Kuvira herself had often done when she was trying to be 'diplomatic'.

"What good is it?" her doppelganger asked. "Saving one life? It's nothing compared to the others you've taken. Let's not forget the countless who were hurt as well. And it got you nothing— two years in prison, without friends, without family—"

"Like we had anything better," Kuvira snarled back.

"We had Baatar," the Great Uniter responded, but her smirk was cruel, not of a woman in love. "We had people who were loyal, in spite of everything we did. And you went and you threw it all away, and for what? Those weeks where you didn't eat, and barely slept? The months after, where exercise became your daily regimen instead of actually making a difference in your nation?"

The smirk widened, and Kuvira already knew what it was going to say. "Don't—"

"For a child that bled out of your womb, four months too soon?"

Kuvira let out a strangled cry of grief and fury, but suddenly the image was gone, and the water of the pool came rushing up to greet her instead.

* * *

><p>Waking up was unpleasant.<p>

For one thing, Kuvira was soaked. And considering her prison clothes were cheaply made, they didn't dry well. For another, she felt as though she'd been run over by a one of Varrick's magnet trains. She winced as the thought pulled up a memory of a group of bandits she'd once threatened. Her muscles felt weighed down as she tried to move, forcing herself into a sitting position.

The Great Uniter was gone. She was on the edge of the pool. Rafflin was sitting next to her, his two friends a little ways behind him. She craned her neck around, looking for Baatar, only to find him speaking quietly with the Painted Lady. Neither of them seemed to notice that she was awake.

"I remember everything now," Rafflin said.

"I'm so sorry. I can't ask your forgiveness."

"Maybe not." The spirit smiled. "But I can give it."

Kuvira's heart leapt into her throat. "What?"

"I can't speak for other spirits, but I forgive you. And thank you for what you've done for me. Maybe it won't make up for everything else you've done, but… thank you."

Stingwing and Barke shuffled closer. "We forgive you, too."

"You saved our friend," whispered Barke. "That's…"

"Good," finished Stingwing. "Who would've thought?"

Kuvira forced herself into a kneeling position, bowing her head until her forehead was pressed into the grass. Three years ago, she never would have been able to picture herself bowing to spirits— especially ones that seemed as tiny as these three, but now she couldn't think of any beings more deserving of her respect. She thought she felt a tiny hand pat the back of her head.

"We should go," Rafflin said. "We really _aren't_ supposed to be here."

"Yeah," agreed Stingwing. "We know the way now."

"Of course," Kuvira said, rising again. She stayed kneeling while the three trotted off down the other side of the mountain, watching them go and taking the moment to catch her breath while she gathered her strength to stand. Baatar and the Painted Lady finished their conversation and started to make their way over to her, and she found herself accepting his help in getting both feet on the ground.

"You may be feeling the effects for a while," the Painted Lady warned. "I do not know how long. And… I cannot say exactly how much, but your life force was channeled into healing Rafflin. If you were to age naturally until death…"

"I would die earlier than before," Kuvira finished.

"Yes." The Painted Lady paused, a shadow crossing over her face. "One other thing… those spirits may have forgiven you, but I have not, and there are others who have not, or never will. However… I am sorry for your loss, child."

Kuvira tensed at the reminder. The Painted Lady turned from them and faded away, like she was part of the wind. In a way that they hadn't when her copy reminded her of it in the vision, all of the memories from that day came back in a rush— the way she'd been too shocked to do anything until the pain overcame her, the smell and sight of blood, the way her grief had clawed its way out of her and she'd curled in on herself. The medics had had to come back in again, just to force her to eat. They had to sedate her to get her to sleep, too.

She almost shuddered, but didn't on the slim chance that Baatar still didn't know. One glance at his face told her otherwise.

"Come on," he said. He sounded about as choked as she felt.

He didn't say anything else as they started their descent from the mountain, for which Kuvira was grateful. He supported her with one arm over his shoulder, at least until she was able to figure out how to put one foot in front of the other and stagger upright. Even then it was slow going, since her steps only seemed to cover a few inches each and lifting her feet was exhausting. The revelation lay heavy in the air between them, until Kuvira could no longer stand it.

"The Painted Lady told you?" she asked.

"No," he said. "You were speaking while the Painted Lady was doing the transfer, and I managed to put two and two together from what you said, and from what Koh said earlier. I asked the Painted Lady if she'd sensed anything… off, with regards to that. She was reluctant to reveal anything at first, but eventually she admitted that you'd been pregnant and had… lost the baby."

"I didn't know." It started spilling out of her, like word-vomit. "I didn't know I was pregnant, Baatar. I… wasn't exactly taking care of myself. Still, it was something that I should have realized was a possibility. Something I should've _noticed_, spirits, but my cycle was the last thing on my mind…" She took a deep breath, relying yet again on her poor meditative techniques, but her resolve was quickly crumbling.

She'd stopped walking. She didn't remember doing that. She knew that she should've kept going, but she couldn't really bring herself to move.

Baatar pulled her against him before she could say anything else, and this time there was no pretense of helping her stand. She stiffened for a moment at the unexpected contact, but allowed herself to sag against him a moment later, closing her eyes and steadying her breathing. Her eyes were dry, and she wasn't shaking, but she appreciated the moment nonetheless. She could pretend, for just a bit, that things were like they used to be between them. They weren't— Baatar was still too hurt and angry for that.

_There's so much, _she thought, _that I believed I'd come to terms with in prison. What a fool I was._

Kuvira didn't know how long they stayed that way, but it was Baatar who moved away first. His silent comfort meant more to her than any words could've, but she was at a loss of how to convey her gratitude; the most she could do was grab his hand and squeeze it quickly, before setting off at a more determined pace. She thought she could feel the beginnings of her strength returning, finally.

When they got to the base of the mountain, it was to find themselves at the edge of a cliff.

"Dead end," Baatar commented.

"It would seem so," Kuvira said, frowning. They couldn't see the bottom, owing to a thick mist that hovered over the area, but her instincts were telling her to run as fast as she could in the opposite direction.

"This _is_ the end," came Zaheer's voice. "For you."

Baatar yelled in alarm when the Red Lotus leader kicked him from behind, sending him tumbling over the edge. Kuvira twisted out of the way and rolled underneath another of Zaheer's strikes, but she was primarily a metalbender— not a martial artist, like Zaheer had been before becoming an airbender— and she was still weak from saving Rafflin. Before she could dodge another strike or fight back, he hauled her up by her waist and threw her, bodily, into the mist.

It was a while before she hit the ground. Spirits, it _hurt_, and it took ages before she could stand up again.

"Baatar?" she called, cursing herself for letting her voice crack.

No answer. He couldn't have been far, but… this damn fog. Kuvira started walking (it was always walking), hoping to find the edge of the cliff again so that she could have something to follow, but was distracted by a noise coming from somewhere near her. She frowned, angling in the direction she thought it was coming from, and started to follow it. She quickened her pace when she realized it was a child, crying.

"Hello?" she called. "Are you alright?"

There was a huddled form somewhere in front of her. Kuvira was just able to make it out when she recoiled, shocked.

"Mommy, Daddy," the girl whimpered. "Where are you?" She looked up at Kuvira. "Where did they go?"

"I-I…"

The girl stared at her with huge, wet eyes. She sniffed. Her clothes were ratty and filthy, and there were scratches on her face and a bruise was forming under her left eye. Then, suddenly, Kuvira was looking down at herself, the way she'd been just after she and Korra were blasted into the Spirit World. Still kneeling, still curled in on herself for protection, holding onto her right side, where her broken ribs were.

"This isn't what I wanted," she whispered. "It didn't have to happen this way."

Kuvira knew what to say this time. "We brought this on ourselves."

Her other self laughed, a horrible, rattling sound that obviously pained her. Then it was like watching herself go back in time, as the broken, defeated Kuvira slowly stood, her torn and tattered uniform fixing itself as she watched. She straightened fully, her side no longer hurting her, as the escaped hair forced itself back into its bun. It was, for some reason, one of the most disturbing things that Kuvira ever watched, and she backed away slowly as the fear from before returned.

"Is this it?" the Great Uniter demanded. "Is this what becomes of Kuvira, the Great Uniter? The woman who went to such extraordinary lengths to heal her sick nation, only to break because of the compassion of one woman. Your weakness has cost you dearly. I was strong before. I managed to achieve what I set out to do. And in the meantime, you've languished in a cell."

"We were willing to kill children," Kuvira countered.

"We did what we had to do to save our people."

And that was the crux of the matter— the excuse that Kuvira fed herself and everyone around her whenever they expressed doubt or skepticism in her methods. She wanted to run away from the Great Uniter, to do anything to stop her from speaking, but she couldn't. Running was something that Kuvira had vowed she would never do again, no matter how afraid she was. Running was the coward's way, and whatever else she had been before, she was no coward.

"What do you want?" she snarled.

The other Kuvira flicked a hand. At first Kuvira was confused, but then she felt earth close around both her ankles, the unexpected sensation forcing her to her knees. She pulled up, straining, to no avail, and she couldn't get herself into a standing position again. Her other self was approaching her slowly, sickles rising from her armor the way they had before she was about to kill Korra, and again in the desert. The Great Uniter did not attack her, however, instead, sending the sickles to hover around Kuvira.

"What do I want?" The Great Uniter paused. "What I want is for you to want me back. You used to wear me like I was another set of armor. Protection from the guilt. Protection from _caring_. You need me back. I want you to admit it."

Kuvira threw back her head and laughed, which surprised her doppelganger. "For what do I need you?" she asked derisively. "You represent my past. You represent all of the mistakes I've made. Even if I did need you, I certainly wouldn't _want_ you."

"Really?" The new voice surprised her. Baatar entered her field of vision from the side, also dressed in Earth Empire garb. "You were never anything without her. No one in the Earth Nation would have seen anything of value in you without her there to help you. They'd have cast you aside, seen you as you really are: worthless. Weak. Emotion and compassion are things that you don't need."

_He's not real, _Kuvira thought, but her voice betrayed her. "Baatar, I—"

"—love me?" he finished. "Why? Did you think I loved you?"

Quietly she said, "You're angry with me. Not… this. I would take your hatred over whatever _this _is."

"You gave me the chance to prove my worth," he told her, ignoring her words. "You gave me an opportunity to flourish in a way that I never would have if I'd stayed in Zaofu. And for that, I'll always be grateful, but _love_? Frankly, I thought you understood— it was a marriage of convenience from the beginning. We still needed each other. It was easier to tie the knot that way."

The Great Uniter nodded. "Marrying into the Beifong name certainly has its benefits."

That had never been the point, but Kuvira figured that nothing she said would sway these two. She just needed to stay calm. She needed to stay reasonable. She _knew_ that there had been emotions involved her relationship with Baatar. Even if he didn't love her now, they had loved each other then, and that was more than anything she could have asked for.

(And yet…)

"They have a point," said another newcomer. Korra crossed her arms. "Why did I even save you? Any information from you would've been really useful in stopping those who stayed loyal to you after your imprisonment, but did you do anything? No. Useless. You should've seen yourself after the spirit cannon imploded. I mean, I can't really talk because of my poisoning, but you looked pathetic."

Kuvira gritted her teeth, but she still didn't rise to the bait.

"I treated you like a member of my family, and this was how you repaid me?"

Her head jerked up. Anger burned through her like a poison, forcing her to speak. "What? You never treated me like family! Fed me, yes. Sheltered me, yes. Taught me? Without a doubt. But you never loved me like you loved the rest of your children!"

Suyin shook her head sadly. "What a disappointment you've been, Kuvira."

Kuvira felt herself start to shake. Suyin never said those words to her, but her mother did.

When she looked up next, Suyin and the Great Uniter were the only two left, with the Great Uniter standing a few paces back, watching them with an empty look on her face. Kuvira still couldn't move, chained to the ground by earth that she couldn't bend. She tried to remember what Korra always told her about meditating, but it was getting harder to focus, like the fog around her was filling up her mind.

"You don't get to be disappointed in me," she snarled, shaking her head slightly.

"Why not?" Suyin asked mildly. This wasn't how their talk in prison had gone. Then, Su had been the angry one, and Kuvira had sat and listened, and not replied to anything that the Beifong matriarch said. "I raised you, didn't I? I raised you to be someone strong, someone who doesn't hide behind prison camps and the lie that what you were doing was for the greater good."

"I was trying to protect them!" Kuvira yelled. "You hid behind your domes in Zaofu. You didn't even offer aid! You were the person I looked up to more than _anyone_, Su, and I never believed that you would turn your back on people who needed you— but you did. What else could I do?"

There were tears coming— no, no, no, Kuvira didn't deserve to cry about this. She didn't get to do this. She bowed her head, determined to hide the tears. She struggled to breathe deeply, again, both furious and despairing, and with a jumble of memories— of prison, of growing up in Zaofu, of conquering the Earth Kingdom.

_What is this, really?_

Maybe it was time to be honest with herself. She'd thought she was past this, but even in prison, there were some things she'd been unable to let go of. Some of the old bitterness, and the old anger, which this fog was goading her back into. She looked up, locking eyes with her doppelganger standing behind Suyin.

"Suyin Beifong was never responsible for my actions," she stated. "I was. I and I alone deserve to be punished for my sins. I will not foist the blame onto someone else." She paused, looking at Su. "Su, what I became is not on you. It never was. I am not angry with you. After what I did to you and your family, I have no right to be. I was the Great Uniter. That is a legacy that I'm never going to be rid of, and it's time that I accepted it and everything it means."

Everything around her seemed to stop— then the stone keeping her on her knees crumbled away, and the fog around her whirled and billowed and blew away, leaving a only a valley that was empty apart from hundreds of people, standing desolate and blank-eyed. Both Su and her doppelganger faded out of existence, leaving only Kuvira, feeling oddly hollow in spite of what she'd just admitted.

She wandered among the souls here, blinking once when she recognized Aiwei, but leaving him where he was. Eventually she found Baatar among the wanderers, sitting down, staring at his lap with the same look on his face that the others wore. She crouched down next to him and placed a hand on his arm, frowning when he didn't even react. He didn't resist, either, not even when she hauled him up and started walking him back towards the edge of the valley, where grass just started to peek out.

No one even twitched a muscle as Kuvira and Baatar passed them. In some ways, it was more unnerving than the fog— but Kuvira's head stayed clear, for which she was grateful. Whatever that place had been, she was thankful to be out of it. Especially since it seemed that there were many more who would never be able to leave.

The moment they left the valley, Baatar blinked.

"Kuvira?" He looked around him, shaken. "Where— we were in that fog—"

"I got you out." He didn't look like he believed her; she understood. A part of her was wondering if this wasn't just another of the fog's tricks, making it look like they had escaped when she was really still on her knees in that place. She banished the thought from her mind. She felt no great sense of triumph in having gotten out of her visions.

"It was…" He trailed off. "Let's get away from here."

"It was a nightmare," she finished softly. "But it's over now. Whatever else you might think of me, believe that. Please."

She realized that she was still holding onto his arm, and released him. He didn't move away from her though, and he stayed that close to her when they began to walk again. Neither of them were paying any particular attention to their surroundings, both too shaken by the fog to care. Baatar eventually started to speak again.

"I saw you," he said. "You were telling me that you never loved me. And… and then I saw bodies. Opal. My brothers. My mother and father. You started to tell me that I had ended their lives, that the weapon I built had destroyed them— that I should be _proud_ of my work. I didn't want to listen, but I couldn't stop listening, either. It only got worse, and then… then I was here. Out here, and the first thing I saw was you, and I…"

"I saw me, too," Kuvira admitted. "And you. And Korra, and your mother."

Baatar looked at her, startled. "The Avatar is among the people most important to you?"

"She's visited me every month I've been in prison. She's been kind to me. Not that I've deserved any of it, but she's truly the most remarkable woman I've ever met."

Kuvira paused. She remembered the day Korra visited, after… well. The Avatar didn't speak a word about the incident, but she did offer a silent presence while Kuvira spilled everything she was feeling. She would forever be indebted to Korra for everything she did for her, but it was that day that she vowed she would never, ever go against the Avatar again. Anything and everything Korra did had her support, and she did her best to advise her when Korra (once or twice) admitted that she probably needed help with transitioning the Earth Kingdom to a republic.

"Baatar," she began. "I'm sorry. I know that what you probably need from me is to hear that… that my feelings for you are gone. That I don't love you anymore. It would be the kind thing to do, so that you can at least move on with your life, even if you're stuck in Zaofu. But I also swore that I would never lie to you, and I don't intend to start now.

"I do love you. Even when I fired on your position, I loved you. I'm not asking you to return my feelings, after what I did to you. But I'm selfish. I can't give you what you need."

She heard him sigh. "What made me angriest," he began, "in Zaofu, was that after everything, I still loved you. How could I? You'd think that being attacked by your fiancée would be enough of a wake-up call. It didn't help, when we first got here, how… _zen_ you were about everything. It was almost insulting how calm you could be about your punishments. It was only when you started freaking out in the desert that I realized maybe you weren't as calm as you made yourself out to be."

Kuvira laughed. It was a little messed up. A little broken. "Can I just…" she gestured at him helplessly, before giving up and wrapping her arms around him. "I've missed you."

She thought she could hear his smile. "I've missed you too."

* * *

><p>They eventually found themselves standing in a great expanse, empty except for a great tree in the center and two portals on either side. Kuvira was surprised.<p>

"Is this it?" she wondered.

"Not quite," a new voice answered.

This time, they were approached by a portly old man, who had a bald head and a beard and a kind face. His expression was free of judgment when he looked at the two of them, but his tone was grave. "You have both passed through the trials that you were meant to undergo during your time here. I hope that you understand the place that the spirits have in our world better than you did before."

They bowed. "We hope so as well," Baatar replied.

"You made it out of the Fog of Lost Souls," the man noted. "I am impressed. I am also here to tell you that this is where you say goodbye to the Spirit World. One of these portals will take you back to your world, where you will find that several days have passed since your disappearance."

"Well, we're in for it now," Baatar muttered. "Mom's not going to be happy."

"Where do we go from here?" Kuvira asked.

The man shrugged. "That is entirely up to you," he said. "Your path has always been your own— as you learned, Kuvira. You have the choice of how to forge it. You could stay here, with us, but I think you will find that you're not welcome in many places. You could return to the real world and go into hiding, live out your lives in exile. Or you could make another choice. Any number of things can be done. I cannot tell you what to do."

They thanked him, and bid him farewell, before choosing the portal closest to them. Stepping through it— out of the spirit world and back into the physical world— felt as strange as it had the first time Kuvira had done so, although not as strange as being thrown into the spirit world due to her weapon. Baatar looked a little disturbed by the sensation as well.

The two of them were greeted by a blast of icy air. The spirit portal was surrounded by a ring of trees, which had an opening on one side. That opening was guarded by two water tribe warriors, both of whom cried out in surprise to see Kuvira and Baatar emerge from the portal.

"Who are you?" one barked. "What business do you have here?"

"Travelers," Kuvira answered. "May we speak to your chief?"

The guards looked at each other in confusion, before one shrugged and gestured for them to follow. A part of Kuvira hoped (and dreaded) that this was the South Pole, and that the chief they were being led to was Tonraq. She wasn't sure if it was relief or disappointment she felt when the chiefs turned out to be the two twins from the North Pole, both of whom bore absolutely no reaction to two of the biggest war criminals showed up in their home.

"We could put them in P'li's prison," the male twin (Desna, Kuvira recalled) suggested. He sounded bored.

"I do not care what they do," replied Eska. "Had they attacked us, no doubt I would skewer them both with an icicle at this very moment. As it is, they did not attack us."

"They attacked our ally," Desna pointed out. "And our cousin."

Eska pointed at Kuvira without even looking at her. "She is Bolin's new girlfriend."

Kuvira choked, trying to turn it into a cough. Baatar looked like he was trying not to laugh, so Kuvira settled for glaring at him.

"Do whatever you want with us," she said. "Just… don't ever call me that again."

Both twins stared at her without even blinking. Kuvira shivered.

"I like her."

"I do too."

"She is still threatening."

"It's certainly an appeal."

_What in the spirits?_ Kuvira thought.

"I think that inaction is the best course of action here, Eska."

"I agree." Eska waved her hand at the two of them. "Do whatever you want. We're not particularly interested in your futures."

After that, Kuvira and Baatar were ignored entirely, so after exchanging bemused glances, they edged out of the throne room. She was nonplussed by the two, but apparently the Northern Water Tribe was run with ruthless efficiency, so she wasn't about to question it. The guards that had been told to stand outside eyed them nervously, having realized who they were, but they made no move to stop them as they left.

"What do you think?" Baatar asked her.

Kuvira's mind had been made up a long time ago. "What else? I'm going back to Republic City to face my trial. If you want to go somewhere else, I won't stop you. I'm willing to be that the chiefs won't care if you decide to settle here. It's like the man in the spirit world said— your path is yours, Baatar."

He shook his head. "No, I'll come with you. But I'm going to refuse to testify against you."

"Baatar—"

"Mother convinced me to. It would've shortened my sentence of house arrest in Zaofu." He sighed. "But now… I don't deserve that. And I don't want to make myself look like a fool by saying that you manipulated me into doing all of those things for you, especially since I know now that it isn't the truth. It may mean that we don't get to see each other for some time, but the world needs the truth right now, not more lies."

They ended up walking to the harbor hand-in-hand, both aware that they would soon be separated once again. Kuvira was afraid of this trial, but that was exactly why she needed to go through with it. They found a ship that would take them to Republic City (the captain was skeptical at first, but he agreed quickly enough when he realized that he would be rewarded for being the one to return them to the capitol of the United Republic). As they pulled away from the Northern Water Tribe, Kuvira stood on the deck, aware that the cold was starting to seep into her bones and finding herself unable to care.

"In spite of having to go back," Baatar said, coming to stand next to her, "I'm glad that that's over."

Kuvira turned to him, about to respond, but something caught her eye. She looked out over the water to see someone standing on a nearby ice floe, staring at her. She recognized the figure instantly, from the armor to the dark green uniform and the professional gaze that they fixed Kuvira with.

She blinked, and it was gone.

"No," she murmured, meeting Baatar's eyes. "It'll never be over."


End file.
